Outpouring of support for newborn after Quebec City mother-to-be killed by car

Friends have raised $30,000 in a single day of fundraising for the newborn baby and partner of Marie-Pier Gagné, 27, who died after she was struck by a car at a pedestrian crosswalk outside a Quebec City hospital Wednesday.

Before Gagné succumbed to her injuries, her baby was delivered safely. She had posted on her Facebook page that she was expecting a girl.

• Woman dies after being struck by car in Quebec City, baby delivered safely

Her pregnancy was at full term when she was hit.

By early Thursday evening, 1,000 donors had helped to raise more than $30,000 to help the baby's father, Sylvain Bittner-Lamy.

Émilie Marceau, who started the crowdfunding page, raised the fundraising target to $40,000, saying Bittner-Lamy will need support as he tries to raise the baby on his own.

"That is why we want to raise money to help them," Marceau wrote on the site.

Gagné was struck by a car on Wednesday morning on Laurier Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare, in front of the Laval University teaching hospital. She had been crossing at a pedestrian crosswalk near the hospital's clinic for expectant and new mothers.

Emergency workers and the hospital's neonatal team rushed out to the street to try to save the critically injured woman.

They were able to deliver the baby, but the mother's injuries were too severe. Her death was confirmed late Wednesday afternoon.

The 20-year-old driver whose car struck the woman may have suffered some kind of illness and was taken to hospital, Quebec City police said. 

Witnesses described a car careening out of control, nearly hitting a post before striking Gagné at full force. The car then kept going, running into two other vehicles stopped at the lights at the next intersection, police said.